and the rest is silence
by biscutpoo
Summary: They live lives of noise, punctuated by the sounds of shouts, cries, and laughter. Silence isn't something Kushina ever really learns. MinatoXKushina.


Hi everyone! This is my first naruto story. (Absolutely love Minato and Kushina, they're so sweet ^w^) FYI: I like to continuously edit so...please don't be surprised if I update this in the near future to fix little grammar things or to add more scenes. You've been warned.

Disclaimer: Minato and Kushina are not mine, otherwise I'd have made some spinoff chronicling their lives in enormous detail. (the one time I actually want to see a Naruto anime filler). .

Also...title is a famous line from Hamlet.

* * *

_…and the rest is silence_

-0-

They meet in a crowded classroom beneath the leaves and her intrusion into his life is like the flare of a supernova. Afterwards his vision is changed forever. When Minato first sees Kushina, she declares to the world at the top of her lungs that she is going to become this village's Hokage.

The other children laugh, but Minato (who does not find this dream silly at all) stands up and says the same thing because he wants to show the others his support for this new girl's dream.

He expects her to be grateful, but instead she shoots him a deadly glare and pronounces him a flaky idiot who couldn't become a genin let alone Hokage. He expects her to be a shy, sweet, little girl. He couldn't have been more mistaken.

* * *

Kushina shows her true nature when she beats up the boys that call her a tomato. Whipping one boy so hard he cries for mercy. Minato stands shocked by this scene until she shoots him a murderous glare and shouts, "What are you looking at?"

He immediately looks away, a cold feeling spreading through his body, convinced he can feel her glare burrowing into his skull like the frosty fingers of death.

_Uzumaki Kushina…is scary._

* * *

He graduates from the academy with flying colors at the top of the class. Apparently his grades are very good, a big deal, because lots of adults whisper about them behind his back. They call him a prodigy, hopeful that he will lead Konoha towards a bright future.

She graduates at the bottom of the class. And although Minato wants to step in and help her through some of the more vicious fights she gets into (and picks) he realizes that Kushina is one of the strongest people he knows (in mind and in body) and decides to let her fight her own battles. This of course doesn't stop him from cornering some of Kushina's more ferocious bullies and informing them with a tight smile and an extremely sharp kunai in one hand of the hazardous fate that awaits anyone who picks on Uzumaki Kushina.

* * *

They're quickly ushered out of the academy after graduation because war with the Mist village has supplies running low and this is how Minato finds himself on the legendary Jiraiya's team.

It is in this way that he discovers the man is quite a character and an avid fan of researching women's bathhouses. Jiraiya drags Minato along on one of these research trips during which time they both end up running for their lives from angry women chucking anything they can get their hands on.

And that's not even the worst of it. His sensei seems to have an uncontrollable appetite for all three of the shinobi vices (money, alcohol, and women). Minato sees this trinity at work when he stumbles upon his sensei drunk and near broke in a brothel, flirting wholeheartedly with a drag queen whose Adam's apple is the size of the Sandaime's head. It takes half an hour of precious begging before Jiraiya relents and lets Minato drag him from the bar. Minato, unfortunately, doesn't escape before he is hit on multiple times by increasingly drunk patrons.

When he tells this story to Kushina years later, she will laugh so hard she falls off the stool in the kitchen they share, break her wrist on the way down, and snicker all the way to the hospital.

* * *

When Kushina gets kidnapped, it is Minato who finds the trail she has left and it is Minato who saves her.

And it is Minato, who is the first one to compliment her hair.

Afterwards Kushina seems to warm to his presence and despite the fact that she still calls him a flaky idiot most days, their "friendship" is actually kind of nice. Even if Minato has no idea what to make of the headstrong kunoichi appearing in the worst of times and dragging him along on her crazy adventures. She seems to think it's an honor to be present when she drives an upper level jounin to murderous urges with her taunts. Never mind the buildings she destroys on her cat hunting missions. (Needless to say, the poor cat never dared to run away again). And before she's even been a genin for a year, everyone in the village knows about Uzumaki Kushina's deafening presence.

* * *

Once Kushina gets an idea into her head, there is nothing that can stop her. But since Minato is the only one she listens to with even the slightest semblance of respect, it normally falls to Minato to try and talk her out of whatever hair-brained scheme she has devised.

Minato thinks that he would have better luck trying to stop a tsunami with his bare hands because Kushina is a force of nature not to be reckoned with.

(But, he's a sap who's responsible enough, not to mention honor-bound enough to attempt the impossible). So when Minato finds himself chasing the red-haired whirlpool girl across the village in a futile attempt to curve her more destructive tendencies, he only has himself to blame. And shouts of "Kushina you can't just set booby traps in the Hokage's tower" and "Maybe you shouldn't be picking fights with twelve guys twice your size" quickly turn to pleas of "coming through, better get out of her way, I'm really sorry about this" in her wake.

* * *

Trying to wish Kushina good luck before the chunin exam is like trying to pet a venomous cobra. All he gets in return is a string of obscenities and a promise that his ass will be kicked in the first exam. The first exam is a written test, he tells her, so she can't really kick anyone. But logic never seemed to affect Kushina before.

Chunin exams are never complete without a little journey through the forest of death. In Minato's case, it's less a journey and more a race for his life. Nevertheless the unconventional alliance he forms with Kushina and Uchiha Mikoto manages to land the three of them a first place finish with their limbs mostly in tact. Minato thinks the only reason they never ran into any enormous bears in those woods is because not even the animals dared to get in Kushina's way.

The third exam involves a tournament before the entire village and a large number of foreign diplomats, which Minato wins relatively easily. Also, being the friendly, charismatic, person that he is, he even makes some new friends. The same cannot be said of Kushina who not only manages to offend all three proctors, but also makes another archenemy to add to the top of her already extensive list. Because Kushina loses to Uchiha Fugaku in the semifinals, she never forgives him afterwards, not when he arrests her for inciting a street riot and certainly not after he marries her best friend, the arrogant bastard.

* * *

"You know," says Minato objectively, "You're kind of loud."

Kushina, who might only be half listening, freezes in the middle of a rather ferocious argument and turns to look at him strangely. The two of them are sitting on the hospital roof, Minato with his arm in a sling, Kushina arguing with the Inuzuka girl five stories below, screaming louder than the dogs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She demands and Minato is suddenly concerned she's going to punch him in the arm regardless of the fact that he's already broken it.

"It's just an observation," he says placidly. "You make a lot of noise."

Kushina snorts. For her, sound is life, the conqueror's flag stuck firmly in new soil. And though she'll never say it out loud, this is why: her mother can't sing anymore, her father can't yell, her village now lies a silent ruin so Kushina feels the slightest obligation to fill that void with her voice. "_You _might be happy to go through life unnoticed," she says, "but some of us want to exist. I'm alive and it'd be awfully ungrateful of me not to live it. Silence is for the dead."

Kushina turns back to her screaming match with the Inuzuka, entirely oblivious to the fact that she's just left a certain blond speechless and quite possibly inspired the greatest Hokage the village will ever know to open his mouth and take the first leap.

Minato thinks that just maybe, Kushina can say something cool, too, once in a while.

* * *

When Kushina first takes him to Ichiraku's Minato waits about ten seconds before he voices his opinion. When he admits that he hates ramen, has always hated ramen, and will probably always hate ramen, Kushina stares at him speechless for a whole twenty seconds before she declares righteously that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who like ramen and those who don't. She makes it sound as if the latter are the worst kind of vermin and Minato laughs awkwardly until he realizes that she's being serious. Then he quickly does a double take and pretends that it was only a joke. And wasn't it funny how she fell for it—hahaha…

He spends the rest of the night trying to down his large bowl of miso pork ramen with a forced smile.

* * *

Minato comes back from the war with hollow eyes (part of him never comes back at all) and she is the only one who notices that behind all his fake smiles he is not quite as fine as he pretends to be.

So despite his assurances that he really is just fine—thank you very much—Kushina drags him to her favorite place in the world and treats him to a big bowl of ramen.

It isn't the ramen or her strangely comforting words, or the shoulder she lends him to lean against that brings Minato back to life. It isn't even the kiss she gives him afterwards—although that was certainly part of it—It's the fact that she alone noticed that touches Minato's heart most of all.

* * *

When Minato finds out that Kushina is the Kyuubi's jinchuriki he takes a long fifteen seconds to process this information during which time, Kushina is about to break into tears for the third time in her entire life (the first time was when her parents died, the second when she thought Minato had been killed).

Afterwards, Minato tells her that being a jinchuriki does not even make the list of her top ten faults.

Kushina lets out a sigh of relief and proceeds to beat him up when he tells her the list (her violent erratic behavior a close second to her love of ramen).

* * *

Minato discovers, with paralyzing horror, his picture on the cover of Kunoichi Magazine, the largest pop magazine in the Hidden Leaf Village under the list "Konoha's Top Ten Most Eligible Bachelors."

Kushina, on the other hand, finds this hilarious especially when she discovers their use of the title "Yellow Flash" hints at a whole different kind of speed. "So Minato," she says one uneventfully boring Sunday afternoon, "What's this I hear about you bedding ten women in under an hour?"

It's only funny because he's more a virgin than she is.

* * *

The whole village gossips nonstop after he asks her out. And before long everyone in Konoha seems to know that the legendary Yellow Flash and Red Hot Habenero are dating. So when Minato isn't fending off scornful gazes from the single women in the village who'd hoped to land him instead or the disapproving glares of the elders who still haven't forgiven Kushina for the grafitti incident a few years back, he's fending off congratulations and Jiraiya-sensei's insistent advice.

* * *

After Obito dies, Minato drags his somber team home, makes Rin promise to take Kakashi to the hospital, and stumbles back to the apartment he shares with Kushina.

She opens the door and is shocked at what she sees. His shirt is still soaked in dried blood.

"Obito's dead." He says in a flat voice once she has let him in.

Kushina gasps softly and remembers the bumbling Uchiha who always had something in his eye with a sad fondness.

"I didn't make it in time," Minato says, his voice full of anguish. "If I had gotten there sooner, if I had been faster…"

"Oh, Minato…" She wraps her arms around him, hiding his face against her chest, and letting him sob shamelessly while she whispers comforting words that fall on deaf ears. Afterwards she will talk even louder to fill the void but for now she is uncharacteristically gentle. "He won't really die," she says, "until you no longer remember the sound of his life."

She is a pillar and he does not know what he would do without her.

* * *

Although the Sandaime would love to keep Minato in the village (mostly because of the young jounin's positive influence on a certain rambunctious redhead) Konoha's troops are stretched thin and he has no choice but to send Minato out to the front lines.

When Kushina hears that Konoha's Yellow Flash has been captured in the war against Iwa, she disobeys orders, marches straight to the front lines to rescue him and ends up losing it when an Iwa nin jeers that he's dead.

A five-tailed Kyuubi terrorizes Iwa's outpost, killing half their troops and a good number of Konoha troops before Minato steps in and calms the raging beast. Afterwards, she wakes horrified and disgusted with herself because he's in the hospital with a burned leg and _how can he still smile at her like that the flaky idiot_, but Minato doesn't seem to mind that he's now benched for weeks and _it's all her fault _because he's much more concerned with the fact that a large majority of Konoha soldiers now think she's a freak (well, more of a freak than before—she's never gotten stares so cold before). But, Minato can still find it in himself to smile at her and Kushina supposes that's all that really matters, _how is she so lucky to find someone so darn forgiving anyways?_

Word spreads to the other villages and the Yellow Flash's reputation grows exponentially. So besides (apparently) being able to wipe out an entire outpost in the blink of an eye, he also becomes known as the one who single handedly brought down the Kyuubi.

* * *

Besides Kushina, Minato has never seen another jinchuriki before. Not until he meets Bee, the younger brother of the future Hokage, and the keeper of the eight tails.

When they first meet, Minato thinks that A is headstrong and aggressive, the kind of person who acts before he thinks. The kind of person who smashes the desk before he tries to negotiate.

And although they are enemies, Bee's horrible rapping reminds him vaguely of Kushina's own ridiculous traits, and god knows Minato's always had a weakness for idiots.

Maybe it's the fact that he sees Kushina's face in Bee's expression or the fact that A doesn't strike him as a particularly understanding person that drives Minato to impart one of the sole gems of Kushina's wisdom: what a jinchuriki needs most if they are to remain a person.

Afterwards while rain cascades down around him, Minato thinks of her, scarlet hair alight in a shadow of leaves, and wonders if she would approve.

* * *

The night before his inauguration as Hokage, Minato paces back and forth across the living room floor and worries. He worries that he is not ready for the responsibility. He worries he will not be able to protect the village. That shinobi will die because of him. That he will lead Konoha down the wrong path. That he will not be good enough. That he is too young. That he will make mistakes. He worries most of all that he will let down the villagers.

Kushina takes one look at his anxious pacing, yanks him down on the couch, and firmly tells him that he will become the greatest Hokage this village has ever seen. Greater even than the Shodai Hokage. And besides there's no way he could ever fail when the great Uzumaki Kushina is there to shove him in the right direction.

* * *

He proposes to her on his birthday and because it is the middle of winter, plum blossoms are in full bloom, the delicate flowers whiter and more pure than the snow. Minato's the _only _one who could turn a day all about him into a day about _them _while _she's_ probably the only one in her right mind to turn down the Fourth Hokage's marriage proposal.

He argues, heartbroken, with her for weeks before she finally admits that she's doing it _for _him. After all, what would people think, what would the other hidden villages think, if Konoha's Hokage married the Kyuubi's jinchuriki?

Minato replies that she is a person first and a jinchuriki second just as he is Minato first and Hokage second. It is the first time he puts her before the village. (Later she will see him swallowed by diplomacy, by terms like "the village" and "duty" and "shinobi" until he has lost himself beneath the Hokage's hat.) But for now, he is still young, still earnest and a little naïve, the happiest person in the world when she says yes.

* * *

Having his face carved into a mountain side isn't all its cut out to be.

For one thing, its incredibly embarrassing to wake up each morning, look out the window and see an enormous stone carving of your face glaring back at you. Especially because Minato's convinced that they made his expression too serious and that his nose is crooked.

Contrary to common belief, Minato has a tendency to worry far too much. So the only thing Kushina can think when she's sitting on the couch watching her fiancé pace up and down the living room floor, (anxiously distressing over the future of his stone face, asking her if she thinks the frown makes him look old, if his hair is too pointy—I mean it would probably look bad if someone was impaled on it) is how amusing it would be for the villagers to see their Hokage now.

Then she tells him flatly that he's driving her crazy and if he doesn't stop worrying about his stupid, ridiculously, unfairly, handsome face on a freaking mountainside, she'll find out just how pointed his hair is when she impales _him_ on it.

* * *

They are married just shy of her 24th birthday amidst orchids and carnations and lilies of the valley that proclaim their love, happiness, and promise. It's a low-key affair with just close friends, kept mostly under the radar so as not to attract attention.

Nevertheless its one of the best days of Kushina's life and she's so happy that she only regrets letting Jiraiya give a toast a tiny bit.

* * *

When Kushina discovers she's with child the two of them stand in the hallway of their shared apartment and shout at each other for almost half an hour.

"I'm going to be a father!"

"_I'm _going to be a mother, 'tebane!"

The silver-mixing bowl lies forgotten between them.

* * *

The name "Naruto" has a nice ring to it, Kushina thinks. She has her doubts when Minato first introduces her to Jiraiya's "The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja" (She knows what kind of thoughts go on in that old toad-sage's mind and if Minato hadn't argued otherwise she would have bet her supply of ramen that it was a porn novel) but her husband is very persistent.

In the end it isn't the fact that the hero never gives up or that Minato buttered her up for weeks or even that she's got no ideas of her own that finally convinces her. It's the fact that ramen inspired the name.

After Jiraiya leaves, Kushina turns fondly to her husband whose head lies gingerly in her lap, listening to little Naruto's heart, and says, "I've always thought the greatest things sprung from ramen." It's a sentiment to how much he loves her that he doesn't argue.

* * *

Nine months pass faster than she'd thought they would but not nearly fast enough. Still, the Third and his wife are in the other room, sipping tea. In a few short hours she'll be able to see her feet again, all the throwing up and the emotional turmoil and the 3 AM hunger pangs will be over, and she can start parading her new redheaded mini-kushina through the village streets.

Minato smiles, lays his hands one last time on Kushina's enlarged belly, feeling their child kick beneath his palms. "I'll see you soon," he says.

They stare into each other's eyes, captivated. And in that one moment, neither one has ever been happier in their entire lives.

The rest is silence.


End file.
